1940-44: after the germans invaded belgium in may 1940, we...

BERTHA ADLER

BORN: JUNE 20, 1928

SELO-SOLOTVINA, CZECHOSLOVAKIABertha was the second of three daughters born to Yiddish-speaking Jewish parents in a village in Czechoslovakia's easternmost province. Soon after Bertha was born, her parents moved the family to Liege, an industrial, largely Catholic city in Belgium that had many immigrants from Eastern Europe.

1933-39: Bertha's parents sent her to a local elementary school, where most of her friends were Catholic. At school, Bertha spoke French. At home, she spoke Yiddish. Sometimes her parents spoke Hungarian to each other, a language they had learned while growing up. Bertha's mother, who was religious, made sure that Bertha also studied Hebrew.

1940-44: Bertha was 11 when the Germans occupied Liege. Two years later, the Adlers, along with all the Jews, were ordered to register and Bertha and her sisters were forced out of school. Some Catholic friends helped the Adlers obtain false papers and rented them a house in a nearby village. There, Bertha's father fell ill one Friday and went to the hospital. Bertha promised to visit him on Sunday to bring him shaving cream. That Sunday, the family was awakened at 5 a.m. by the Gestapo. They had been discovered.

BERTHA ADLER

Fifteen-year-old Bertha was deported to Auschwitz on May 19, 1944. She was gassed there two days later.

ZIGMOND ADLER

BORN: JULY 18, 1936

LIEGE, BELGIUMZigmond's parents were Czechoslovakian Jews who had emigrated to Belgium. His mother, Rivka, was a shirtmaker. She had come to Belgium as a young woman to find a steady job, following her older brother, Jermie, who had moved his family to Liege several years earlier. In Liege, Rivka met and married Otto Adler, a businessman. The couple looked forward to raising a family.

1933-39: Zigmond was born to the Adlers in 1936, but his mother died one year later. His father remarried, but the marriage didn't last. Zigmond's father then married for a third time, and soon Zigmond had a new half-sister and a stable family life. As a boy, Zigmond often visited his Uncle Jermie's family, who lived just a few blocks away.

1940-44: Zigmond was 3 when the Germans occupied Belgium. Two years later, the Germans deported his father for forced labor. After that, Zigmond's stepmother left Liege, giving Zigmond to Uncle Jermie and Aunt Chaje. When the Nazis began rounding up Jews in Liege, some of Uncle Jermie's Catholic friends helped them get false papers that hid their Jewish identity and rented them a house in a nearby village. Two years later, early one Sunday morning, the Gestapo came to the house. They suspected Jews were living there.

ZIGMOND ADLERZigmond, his aunt and two cousins were sent to the Mecheleninternment camp, and then to Auschwitz, where 7-year-old Zigmond was gassed on May 21, 1944.

FRED BACHNER

BORN: SEPTEMBER 28, 1925

BERLIN, GERMANYFred was born to a Jewish family in the German capital. Berlin's Jewish community was large--approximately 170,000 by 1933--and the city was the seat of most of Germany's national Jewish organizations. Fred's family owned a successful clothing factory. He attended a Jewish public school in Berlin.

1933-39: In 1938 the Germans began deporting Polish citizens. Both my parents were Polish by birth, but only my father and brother were sent to Poland. Mother and I remained in Berlin until our emigration was approved in June 1939. After finding my father and brother, we settled near Krakow. By early September Germany invaded Poland. We fled to the countryside but were overtaken by German forces who ordered us back to our town.

1940-45: Once the Germans controlled our area, I was forced to register for a work detail. After working near the town for some time, I was deported to several camps, and eventually to Auschwitz. There I was assigned to check shoes for hidden valuables. The Nazis had found out that some Jews from Belgium and the Netherlands were hiding diamonds and gold in the soles of their shoes. Before these people were gassed, their shoes were brought to us and guards watched as we tore open the shoes. We were ordered to turn in whatever we found.

FRED BACHNERFred escaped from a transport train that was ambushed by Allied forces. He was liberated by the U.S. Army in the spring of 1945.

GISELLA RENATE BERG

BORN: MAY 1, 1933

COLOGNE, GERMANYGisella lived with her parents, grandparents, uncle, and older sister,Inge, in Lechenich, a small village outside of Cologne. The Bergs were an observant Jewish family. Gisella's grandfather was the president of the local synagogue association and her uncle was the cantor. Her father, Josef was a respected cattle dealer, who had many business and personal contacts with their Jewish and non-Jewish neighbors.1933–39: Gisella was born several months after the Nazis came to power. Her parents feared for her safety and did not permit her to play on the street with other children. On November 9, 1938, the Nazis carried out a nationwide pogrom against Germany's Jews, known as Kristallnacht (“The Night of Broken Glass”). Alerted to the danger by a family friend, the Bergs fled to Cologne. That night, local Nazis ransacked their home in Lechenich, damaging or destroying many of the family's possessions. In May 1939, the Bergs left for Kenya.1940–45: In Kenya, then part of British East Africa, the family lived on a farm in the highlands, raising cattle and pyrethrum—a flowering plant used to make insecticide. From her home, Gisella could see the distant peaks of Mt. Kilimanjaro and Mt. Kenya as well as many exotic animals. The Bergs, like other former German citizens, found

themselves classified by the British as “enemy aliens” during World War II. They faced certain restrictions, but Gisella and Inge were able to continue their education.

GISELLA RENATE BERGIn 1947, the Bergs came to the United States, and eventually purchased a chicken farm and dairy business in Vineland, New Jersey. Gisella completed her high school education and graduated from a business college. In 1957, she married Kurt Pauly, a fellow refugee from Nazi Germany.

LEIF DONDE

BORN: MAY 30, 1937

COPENHAGEN, DENMARKLeif was born to a Jewish family in the Danish capital of Copenhagen. Both of his parents were active in the Jewish community there, and his father owned a small garment factory. The majority of Denmark's 6,000 Jews lived in Copenhagen before the war. Despite its size, the city's Jewish population supported many Jewish organizations, often aiding Jewish refugees from all over Europe.

1933-39: I went to a Jewish nursery school, which was next to a girls' school in Copenhagen. I didn't like my school because they made me take a nap in the afternoon. At school, we learned how to spell and read and sometimes we even sang songs. I played with all kinds of children--some of them were Jewish and some of them were not. I didn't really care; they were all my friends.

1940-44: The Germans occupied Denmark in April 1940. On August 28, 1943, the same day they took over the government, my parents took us to Tivoli Gardens, a huge amusement park in the center of Copenhagen. Leaving the park, we saw people gathered in the street

as a convoy of German tanks passed by. Later, my father told us to prepare to leave the city. My parents were scared but it seemed like an adventure to me. We collected warm clothes and took a train south. In October we were smuggled to Sweden on a fishing boat.

LEIF DONDEAfter German troops in Scandinavia surrendered on May 4, 1945, Leif and his family returned to Denmark.

JOSEPH GANI

BORN: 1926

PREVEZA, GREECEJoseph and his family lived in Preveza, a town with a Jewish population of 300 that was located on the Ionian seashore. Joseph's father had a small textile shop. The Ganis were of Romaniot descent, Jews whose ancestors had lived in Greece and the Balkans for more than a thousand years.

1933-39: Joseph attended Greek public school in Preveza. He also received a religious education; the local rabbi would come to the public school for several hours a week to give religious instruction to the Jewish students. Joseph loved sports, especially soccer and baseball.

1940-44: Germany invaded Greece in 1941 and took over the region where Preveza was located in the fall of 1943. The Jews of Preveza were deported to Auschwitz in Poland in March 1944. There, Joseph was assigned to work in Birkenau as part of the Sonderkommando, a work unit that carted corpses to the crematoria. On October 7, 1944, Sonderkommando workers in crematorium IV revolted, disarming SS guards and blowing up the crematorium. Soon, other Sonderkommando workers, including Joseph, joined in the uprising.

JOSEPH GANIJoseph was killed in Birkenau in October 1944. He was 18 years old.

JENINE GUTMAN

BORN: JUNE 25, 1925

BACAU, ROMANIAJenine was the younger of two daughters born to Jewish parents. They lived in a small city with a large Jewish population in central Moldavia. Her father, a veteran of World War I, came from a large family and Jenine had more than 15 aunts and uncles, all living in Bacau. This extended family helped raise Jenine and her sister Sofia while their parents ran a grocery store.

1933-39: Just like every child my age, I belonged to a national youth organization headed by Prince Michael. We wore special uniforms with berets and leather belts, and held

patriotic rallies in the stadium. My father became ill; business suffered and he lost his store and everything that we owned. In 1938, we moved to the national capital, Bucharest, where he got a new job as a factory clerk and I went to a new school.

1940-44: The fascist Iron Guard was now in power, but my patriotism no longer made any difference. Because I was Jewish, I was forced out of public school. Although makeshift, our Jewish schools had excellent teachers; I chose to study bookbinding. After Jews were excluded from public hospitals, a Jewish clinic was organized in Bucharest. I worked in its cafeteria. New restrictions were imposed. There were pogroms. The government made my family provide clothing and bedding to the Romanian army.

JENINE GUTMANJenine was liberated by the Soviet army in August 1944. She continued to live in Romania until 1976, when she emigrated with her family to the United States.

JUDITH MARGARETH KONIJN

BORN: JANUARY 7, 1930

AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDSJudith was the younger of two children born to religious, middle-class Jewish parents. Judith's mother, Clara, was Sephardic, a descendant of Jews who had been expelled from Spain in 1492. Her father, Lodewijk, was a traveling representative for a firm

based in Amsterdam. The family lived in an apartment in a new section of Amsterdam on the southern outskirts.1933-39: Judith attended grade school with her cousin Hetty who was the same age. Judith loved to study. Her mother taught piano to students who came to the house for lessons. Judith loved to play the piano, too. Her family celebrated the Jewish holidays, and like most Dutch families, they exchanged gifts every December 6 on Saint Nicholas Day.

1940-43: After the Germans occupied Amsterdam, they enforced new laws that forbade Jews to enter libraries and museums, or even to use street cars. Then they ordered Jews to wear an identifying yellow badge, and would not allow Jewish children to attend public schools. One by one Judith's relatives disappeared, picked up by the Germans. Then Judith, her mother and brother were arrested in a roundup by the Germans who came while Judith's father was away at work on a night shift.

JUDITH MARGARETH KONIJNJudith was deported to the Westerbork transit camp. From there she was sent to an extermination camp in Poland. She was 13 years old when she died.

HENOCH KORNFELD

BORN: 1938

KOLBUSZOWA, POLANDHenoch's religious Jewish parents married in 1937. His father, Moishe Kornfeld, and his mother, Liba Saleschutz, had settled in Kolbuszowa, where Henoch's mother was raised. There, Liba's father bought the newlyweds a home and started his new son-in-law in the wholesale textile business.

1938-39: Henoch was born in late 1938, and was raised among many aunts, uncles and cousins. Around Henoch's first birthday, Germany invaded Poland and soon reached Kolbuszowa. Polish soldiers on horses tried to fight against the German army, but they were no match for tanks. After a short battle, there were many dead horses in the streets. Henoch's town came under German rule.1940-42: Everyone in town, including the children, knew of Hafenbier, the vicious German police commander with the face of a bulldog who was posted in Kolbuszowa. Hafenbier terrorized and killed many of the town's Jews. Henoch often played a game with the other children in town in which he would portray Hafenbier, saying to his friends, "If you are a Jew, you are dead." Then, with a rifle made from a piece of wood, Henoch would "shoot" his playmates. They, in turn, would fall over, pretending they had been killed.

HENOCH KORNFELDHenoch and his family were deported to the Rzeszow ghetto on June 25, 1942, and then to the Belzec extermination camp on July 7 where they were gassed. Henoch was 3 and a half years old.

HELGA LEESER

BORN: 1928

MUENSTER, GERMANYThe older of two sisters, Helga was raised by prosperous, non-religious Jewish parents in the small Catholic town of Duelmen in western Germany. Her family owned a linen factory. Before marrying Helga's much older father in 1927, her mother had been a Dutch citizen. As a child, Helga looked forward to vacations in the Netherlands with its comparatively relaxed atmosphere.

1933-39: At age 6 I began attending a Catholic elementary school. Antisemitism wasn't a problem till the night of November 9, 1938 [Kristallnacht, Night of Broken Glass], when Nazis from a nearby city vandalized our town's Jewish properties. Father raced downstairs and was arrested; four days later, he committed suicide in his prison cell. Mother regained her Dutch citizenship and emigrated to the Netherlands. With my grandfather's help, my sister and I joined her.1940-44: After the Germans occupied the Netherlands in 1940, I was forced out of school. In 1942 we avoided deportation by getting false papers saying we were Dutch Christians and by moving to Rotterdam where a Dutch couple hid us in their flat. We lived just two blocks from police headquarters. Because I was very Jewish looking, I had to stay inside. I spent my time reading and studying. Often we listened to the BBC. Our worst problem was the lack of food; by the end of 1944, we were reduced to eating mainly sugar beets.

HELGA LEESERAfter their liberation at the end of the war, Helga, her sister and mother remained in Rotterdam.

WILEK LOEW

BORN: OCTOBER 29, 1925

LVOV, POLANDWilek was the son of Jewish parents living in Lvov, a large city in southeastern Poland. His family owned and operated a honeywine winery. Although they lived amongst Poles and Ukrainians, Wilek's family spoke Hebrew, German and Polish at home and were among Lvov's Jewish intelligentsia. When Wilek was 4, his father died of a heart attack.

1933-39: Jews were often discriminated against in Poland. We found it hard to gain access to schools and jobs. In 1939 I managed to pass the entrance exam and entered the Lvov secondary school. Soon after I began school, war broke out; the Soviets and Germans divided Poland. The Soviets annexed Lvov, taking over our home and business. However, Soviet rule spared us from the Nazis' brutality. I continued my schooling.

1940-44: The German army seized Lvov in 1941, moving the Jews into a ghetto. I was among 40 who crossed daily to the Polish side to make roofing paper for the German army; this work saved me from deportation. In 1943, just before the Germans destroyed the ghetto, I got false papers, assumed the name of a Christian coworker, and fled to Hungary. I became a courier for the resistance in Budapest and was arrested as a Polish spy. Unaware of my Jewish identity, they sent me to Auschwitz on October 29, 1944. It was my 19th birthday.

WILEK LOEWAmong thousands of prisoners force-marched to the German interior as the Allies advanced, Wilek was liberated by the Americans on April 23, 1945. In 1949 he emigrated to America.

FLORA MENDELOVICZ

BORN: AUGUST 16, 1930

BERCHEM, BELGIUMFlora's Romanian-born parents emigrated to Antwerp, Belgium, in the late 1920s to escape antisemitism. Flora's father owned a furniture workshop. Antwerp had an active Jewish community. There were butcher shops, bakeries, and stores that sold foods which were prepared according to Jewish dietary laws. Flora was the oldest of three girls, and the family spoke Yiddish at home.

1933-39: When I arrived for my first day of kindergarten at public school, I was shocked to learn that there were other languages besides Yiddish! Every day after school I went to a Yiddish school where I learned about Jewish culture. In 1937 my father lost his shop. He found work as a ship's carpenter and began to travel the world. In November 1938 we learned that Papa had stayed in America, hoping that we could join him there.

1940-44: After the Germans invaded Belgium in May 1940, we had to wear a yellow star. When I started fourth grade in September, kids pushed and insulted me because I was Jewish. One day that winter we were forbidden to go to school. I took my sister and said, "It's o.k. if we can't study, we'll go to the park." A sign at the park said "No Jews or dogs allowed." Then we went to the movies, but the same sign was posted. I said, "Don't worry, we'll get ice cream," but at the shop a sign said Jews could not be served. We returned home in shame. In 1942 we had to wear a yellow star.

FLORA MENDELOVICZOn the advice of a friend who was in the German army, the Mendelovicz family fled to Brussels. Flora was hidden in convents in Belgium and was spared deportation because of the efforts of resistance fighter Georges Ranson, Father Bruno Reynders (a Benedictine monk), and others. In 1946 Flora and her family immigrated to the United States, where she first worked as a dressmaker, then completed her schooling, and became a teacher.

DAVID MORGENSZTERN

BORN: CA. 1925

KALUSZYN, POLANDThe second of four children, David, or Duvid as he was called by his family, was born to Jewish parents living 35 miles east of Warsaw in the small predominantly Jewish town of Kaluszyn. David's mother and grandmother ran a newspaper kiosk in town, and his father worked as a clerk in the town hall. David attended public elementary school.

1933-39: War has broken out between Poland and Germany. Many people are afraid of what might happen if the Germans occupy Poland and have decided to flee to the Soviet border, 83 miles east. My cousins, Majlech and Abram, have left with their father in his truck, and my older brother Josel, who is 17, will soon be leaving with a group of his friends. Even though I'm 14, my parents say I'm not old enough to go.

1940-44: We've moved to Minsk Mazowiecki, 10 miles from Kaluszyn, to live with my father's relatives because our house was destroyed by shelling during a battle between German and Polish forces. At first, living here wasn't so bad, but now the rooms are too crowded. The Nazis have forced more than 5,000 Jews in Minsk Mazowiecki to relocate to one small area of the town. There aren't enough houses for everyone, so families are doubling up. Typhus, carried by lice, has started to spread.

DAVID MORGENSZTERNIn 1942, 17-year-old David and his family fled to Kaluszyn to escape deportation. Soon after, however, most of the Jews in Kaluszyn were deported to the Treblinka extermination camp.

MAX ROSENBLAT

BORN: JULY 1939

RADOM, POLANDMax's parents, Taube and Itzik, first met as children in 1925. Taube was the daughter of a tailor who hired apprentices in his shop, and Itzik was one such apprentice. The Jewish youngsters fell in love and dreamed of getting married even though Taube's family frowned upon the match.

1933-39: In 1938 Taube and Itzik married. The couple lived in an apartment on 49 Zeromskiego Street in Radom, where Itzik opened a women's tailor shop. Max was born in July 1939. He had curly hair and blue eyes like his father. Two months after he was born, Germany invaded Poland. The Germans occupied Radom and evicted all the Jews from Zeromskiego Street. The Rosenblats had to leave everything, even Max's baby carriage.

1940-42: Radom's Jewish Council assigned the Rosenblats to a shack, which was enclosed in a Jewish ghetto in April 1941. Max slept in a homemade bed of straw. He had no toys and little food. In August 1942, when Max was 3, the Germans began rounding up and deporting all the Jews in Radom's two ghettos who could not work for them. Max's father tried to hide his family in his shop, but they were caught in a roundup and Max and his mother were taken away. They were marched to the railroad and herded into a boxcar.

MAX ROSENBLAT

In August 1942 Max and his mother were deported to the Treblinkaextermination camp, where they were gassed upon arrival. Max was 3 years old.

BERTA RIVKINA

BORN: APRIL 1929

MINSK, BELORUSSIABerta was the youngest of three girls born to a Jewish family in Minsk, the capital of Belorussia. Before World War II, more than a third of the city was Jewish. Berta's father worked in a state-owned factory building furniture, an occupation in which several of his relatives also made a living.

1933-39: We lived on Novomesnitskaya Street in central Minsk, only a few blocks from the Svisloch River. My older sister, Dora, loved to swim there in the summer. By the time I was in the fourth grade, there were many Polish refugees in our city. Germany and the USSR had divided Poland, and Poles were fleeing eastward. Many stayed in Minsk because it was still close to "home," being only about 20 miles from the Polish-Soviet border.

1940-44: I was 12 when the Germans reached Minsk in 1941 and set up a ghetto. A year later, trying to escape a roundup, my mother and I hid in a warehouse. When we were discovered by a German guard, I was so scared that I began talking gibberish and started to run--the guard followed me. As I fled I slammed into another woman who appeared out of nowhere. Just then the guard fired his gun. We both fell and I was sure I'd been hit. But I stood up and found that I wasn't wounded. The other woman lay motionless.

BERTA RIVKINABerta was taken to be executed but managed to get away. Later, she escaped from the ghetto and joined the Soviet partisans. She was liberated by the Red Army in July 1944.

JOSEPH VON HOPPEN WALDHORN

BORN: NOVEMBER 14, 1930

PARIS, FRANCEJoseph was the youngest of three children born to immigrant Jewish parents. His Polish-born father was a former officer in the Austro-Hungarian army who had met and married Joseph's Hungarian-bornmother during World War I. Joseph was raised in a religious household and grew up speaking French.

1933-39: My mother says it's better here in Paris than in the poor village where she grew up. Unlike my mother, who speaks broken French, my older sisters and I have grown up speaking French fluently. I attend a special public school funded by the Rothschild family. My father says that the terrible things happening to Jews in Germany won't happen to us here.

1940-44: I've fled Paris and am staying with the sister of a friend who is letting me hide on her farm in Sees in western France. About a year ago, when I was 9, German troops occupied Paris. At first, I wasn't in danger. Unlike my foreign-born parents who were subject to being immediately deported, I was a French citizen. I fled Paris after the Germans deported my father in 1941. I have false papers; my new name is Georges

Guerin. My sisters also have false identities and have gotten office jobs in nearby Alencon.

JOSEPH VON HOPPEN WALDHORNJoseph's sisters in Alencon were discovered and arrested. Joseph managed to remain concealed until the end of the war, and emigrated to the United States in 1949.

LISL WINTERNITZ

BORN: MAY 7, 1926

PRAGUE, CZECHOSLOVAKIALisl was the youngest of two children born to a Jewish family in the Czechoslovakian capital of Prague, a city with a Jewish community that dated back to the eleventh century. Lisl's family lived on Karlova Street in the Karlin district of the city. Lisl's father owned a wholesale business that sold floor coverings.

1933-39: I was 12 when, on March 15, 1939, the German occupation forces entered Prague. I went to school that day and a teacher shouted at me, "You dirty, filthy Jew," and then spat in my face. Almost every day new Nazi restrictions were placed on the Jews. We weren't allowed in any public place and our ration cards were stamped with a red "J," meaning we could shop only at certain stores during certain hours.

1940-44: In December 1941 my brother, Peter, was deported. Before leaving he managed to send us a one-word note, "Terezin." Then in June 1942 my parents and I were deported, also to the [Theresienstadt] Terezin ghetto. That September, 5,000 Czechoslovakian Jews in Terezin were being sent to Auschwitz and my parents and I were on the list. Peter,

determined to stay with us, was one of four who volunteered for that transport. That pushed the number to 5,004, so four from the original list were returned to the ghetto--I was one of them.

LISL WINTERNITZLisl was assigned to a work detail making gas masks, and remained in Terezin until the end of the war. She later learned that her parents and brother were killed at Auschwitz.

ZOFIA YAMAIKA

BORN: 1925

WARSAW, POLANDZofia was raised in a well-to-do, prominent Hasidic Jewish family in Warsaw. Uneasy with the constant tension between the Polish people and the Jewish minority, Zofia joined the communist student club Spartacus when she was a teenager. Spartacus actively campaigned against the growing fascist movement in Europe.

1933-39: When Warsaw surrendered to the Germans on September 28, 1939, Zofia was 14 years old. She stopped going to school. Though the Nazis banned Spartacus, she secretly helped to revive the club, which printed antifascist posters and leaflets and distributed them throughout Warsaw. The work was dangerous--German troops were all over the city.

1940-43: A year later, Zofia and her parents were among nearly half a million Jews "resettled" in a small section of Warsaw. The ghetto was sealed in November 1940. Through Spartacus, Zofia trained with a pistol smuggled in by communist partisans. Zofia wanted to join them, but escaping meant endangering her parents' lives. When they were deported in July 1942, Zofia escaped and joined the Lion partisans near Radom. Some 300 Nazis attacked her group of 50 on February 9, 1943. Zofia and two Poles offered to cover their unit's retreat.

ZOFIA YAMAIKAZofia, 18, armed with a machine gun, let the Germans come within eight feet before she fired. Her position was overtaken, and she was killed. Her unit managed to retreat.

MIRU ALCANA

BORN: MAY 24, 1915

RHODES, GREECEMiru was the youngest of four children born to a family of Spanish-Jewish descent on the island of Rhodes. Rhodes had been occupied by Italy since 1912, so Miru learned Italian as well as French at school. At home the Alcana family conversed in Ladino, the Spanish-Jewish language. Miru attended a Jewish school, where she received instruction in Hebrew three times a week.

1933-39: Life on my beautiful island was pleasant and we were close with our neighbors. I called them Auntie Rivka and Uncle Giuseppe, even though they were not really blood relations. I liked to spend time with my dozens of cousins and nieces and nephews. After

finishing secondary school, I began studying midwifery, and I enjoyed my studies very much. I also regularly attended meetings of the Menorah Zionist organization.

1940-44: The Nazis occupied Rhodes in September 1943 and on July 23, 1944, my family and I were arrested and deported to Auschwitz. Upon arrival I was separated from my family. I was branded with a number and my hair was cut. I was told I'd see my parents later. While waiting for the roll-call, we newcomers heard a distant orchestra playing classical music and we smelled what seemed to be burning meat. We were horrified to learn that the smell came from the crematoria and that the burning flesh was that of our friends and relatives.

MIRU ALCANAMiru was the only one of 57 family members to survive Auschwitz and was one of only 161 Jews of Rhodes to survive the Holocaust. She emigrated to the United States in 1950.

JULIA POLAK BOLLE

BORN: JULY 17, 1914

AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDSJulia, her brother and two sisters grew up in Amsterdam in a religious, Zionist Jewish family. The Polak family could trace its roots in the Netherlands back 200 years. Julia attended a Jewish school, and she was proficient in Hebrew.

1933-39: Julia loved to study and teach the Hebrew language. As a leader of Zionist youth, Julia spoke to many groups about creating a Jewish home in Palestine [Yishuv]. Her boyfriend was also involved in Zionist work, and in 1938 they were married. The couple became part of a training program, called "hachshara" in Hebrew, which prepared Jewish youth for agricultural work in Palestine.

1940-44: The Germans invaded the Netherlands in May 1940. In July 1943, as part of a Dutch agreement with the Germans, Julia and her husband were placed on a list of Jews to go to Palestine in exchange for a group of Germans who were living there. They were deported first to the Westerbork transit camp in the Netherlands, and eight months later to the Bergen-Belsen camp. There they were housed with Jewish prisoners designated for exchange. But the exchange never materialized; they were kept at Bergen-Belsen as forced laborers until 1945.

JULIA POLAK BOLLETwo days after Julia and her husband were liberated on April 15, 1945, 31-year-old Julia died of typhus. Her husband survived.

CHAVA LEA DEUTSCH

BORN: 1868

BUDACU DE SUS, ROMANIAChava Lea was born Emma Geisler to Yiddish-speaking, religious Jewish parents. The Deutsch family lived in the village of Budacu de Sus in Transylvania, a region of Romania that belonged to Hungary until 1918. She grew up in the town of Bistrita. In 1890 she married Josef Deutsch, a salesman from the town of Viseu de Sus, where the couple moved in 1910. Chava and Josef raised four children.

1933-39: By 1939 two of Chava Lea's grown sons had moved to the Hungarian capital of Budapest. Chava Lea and her husband remained in Viseu de Sus, a rustic, multi-ethnic town under Romanian rule. They lived near their eldest daughter, Scheindel, and their son Ferenc.

1940-44: The Hungarians marched into Viseu de Sus in September 1940 and annexed it to Hungary. Hungary became an ally of Nazi Germany and new laws were enforced in Viseu de Sus limiting the rights of Jews. Germany occupied Hungary in March 1944, and a month later the Deutsch family was moved into a ghetto established by Hungarian officials for the Jews of Viseu de Sus and from surrounding communities.

CHAVA LEA DEUTSCHChava Lea and her family were among the 8,000 Jews deported from Viseu de Sus to Auschwitz in May 1944. Upon arrival she was gassed. Chava Lea was 76.

ALICE EDELSTEIN-FRIEDMANN


HOSTOUN, CZECHOSLOVAKIAAlice, born Alice Edelstein, was the youngest of two children raised in a Jewish family in the Bohemian village of Hostoun, near Prague. Shortly after Alice was born, her father moved the family to Vienna. There, Alice's father owned a wholesale shoe business. As a child, Alice attended public school and also received a religious education.

1933-39: After graduating from business school, I had a hard time finding a job because of the economic depression in Austria. In 1936 my father let me work in his office, but I was glad to find a job in another office in 1938. I was there only one month when the Germans annexed Austria in March. The Nazis began attacking Jews throughout the city. It broke my heart to leave my parents, but I left for Prague to escape the Nazi terror.

1940-44: In May 1942 I was deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto. On arriving I saw my uncle. He told me that my transport was bound for another destination, and the only way I could stay would be if he declared that I was his bride. He did. I stayed and my transport left a few days later, though no one knew to where. A year later I was deported to Auschwitz, and from there sent in 1944 with 500 women to work in Hamburg cleaning rubble from the streets and factories.

ALICE EDELSTEIN-FRIEDMANNAlice was eventually deported to the Bergen-Belsen camp where she was liberated by British troops on April 15, 1945. Alice was the only member of her family to survive the war.

HANNA ELLENBOGEN


ROZWADOW, POLANDHanna was one of three children born to a Jewish family in the central Polish town of Rozwadow. Hanna's father was a produce wholesaler. As a young girl, Hanna was active in Benei Akiva, a Zionist youth organization. She attended public school in Rozwadow, and then went on to business school.

1933-39: After finishing business school, Hanna took classes in childhood education. She and a friend then set up a nursery school in Rozwadow a few blocks from Hanna's home. The nursery had been open only a few years when Germany invaded Poland in 1939. Weeks after the invasion, the Germans evicted Hanna's family from their home. With nowhere to go, Hanna decided to follow her brother, who had fled to the Soviet-controlled city of Lvov.

1940-41: In Lvov Hanna managed to get a job in a restaurant where she met Zygmunt Gozdinski, a young man who had fled to Lvov from German-occupied Kielce. In early 1940 he decided to return to his family in Kielce and asked Hanna to go with him. Since Germany and the Soviet Union were allied at that time, it was possible to traverse the border between German- and Soviet-occupied Poland. In 1941 Hannah's family in Lvov received wedding pictures from Hanna and Zygmunt--the couple had married in Kielce.

HANNA ELLENBOGENZygmunt returned to Lvov to get false papers for himself and Hanna. During his absence, Hanna was taken in a German roundup of Jews in Kielce. She was never heard from again.

RENA GANI


PREVEZA, GREECERena and her family were Romaniot Jews, a group that had lived in Greek cities and the Balkans for more than 1,100 years. The town of Preveza, located on the Ionian seashore, had 300 Jews. Rena's father had a small textile shop and her mother stayed at home to care for Rena, her sister and her three brothers.

1933-39: When we moved to the nearby town of Ioannina, I completed Jewish primary school there. The school was sponsored by the French organization Alliance Israelite Universelle, and I learned French, Greek and Hebrew, as well as mathematics, history and social studies. By the time I began secondary school in 1933, my parents moved back to Preveza. In Preveza I studied at a Greek public school.

1940-44: The Germans invaded Greece in 1941, but Preveza was not occupied until March 1943. One year later, we were deported to theAuschwitz-Birkenau camp in Poland. My parents were sent directly to the gas chamber. My brothers were sent to work at the crematorium, and I to dig ditches. One Sunday when we didn't have to work I asked the head of my block, a Polish Jew, if I could visit my brothers at their nearby barracks. Infuriated, she snarled at me and slapped me in the face. Several weeks later, all of my brothers were killed.

RENA GANIRena was sent to the Ravensbrueck concentration camp for women, and liberated during a death march in May 1945. She later emigrated to the United States.

ALICE KRAKAUEROVA SEELENFRIEDOVA

BORN: JUNE 13, 1903

HODONIN, CZECHOSLOVAKIAAlice was the third of six children born to Jewish parents in the small Moravian town of Hodonin, where her father ran a dry goods and clothing store. The family spoke both Czech and German at home, and Alice attended a German-language secondary school. After graduating, she married her teenage sweetheart, Otto Seelenfried, who was a chemical engineer.

1933-39: Alice and Otto moved to the town of Jihlava. In 1934 Otto died from a ruptured appendix, and Alice returned to live with her parents in Hodonin. In 1935 she moved to the city of Brno, where she found work as a manager in a department store and fell in love with a man she had met. In March 1939 the Germans occupied Bohemia and Moravia and quickly imposed restrictions on the Jews.

1940-42: In May 1942, a month after her parents had been deported, Alice was ordered to prepare for deportation: each deportee was allowed to bring a maximum of 44 pounds of luggage. She was deported by train to the Theresienstadt ghetto in western Czechoslovakia. After a few days there, Alice was placed on a May 25, 1942, transport to Lublin in Poland.

ALICE KRAKAUEROVA SEELENFRIEDOVAAlice is believed to have died either in a Nazi work camp or in an extermination camp in Poland. When she died, she was 39 years old.

RUDOLF ACOHEN

BORN: JUNE 4, 1922AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS

Rudolf, known as Rudi, and his brother were born in Amsterdam to a Jewish family of Spanish descent. The family lived in a pleasant neighborhood in the southern part of the city. Rudi attended Montessori grade school and high school.

1933-39: For summer vacation in 1935 Rudi's parents rented a house near the beach in Zandvoort, near Amsterdam. There he met a girl, Ina, and they became good friends. In the summer they discovered that they would be attending the same Montessori high school. Rudi and Ina and their many friends liked to get together in the evenings at someone's home and listen to records of Frank Sinatra, classical music, and popular French songs.

1940-42: Germany invaded the Netherlands on May 1940, but for a while there was still a sense of normal life. Rudi still met with his friends to play tennis, and sometimes they took long bike trips together. In the summer of 1941 they biked for several days, and Rudi kept a diary of their adventures.

RUDOLF ACOHEN

On Sunday, June 7, 1942, Rudi was arrested in a raid in retaliation for the murder of a German in Amsterdam. Rudi was immediately deported to an extermination camp, where he perished.

COENRAAD ROOD


AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDSCoenraad was born to a Jewish family in Amsterdam that traced its roots in the Netherlands back to the 17th century. After graduating from public school, Coenraad went on to train as a pastry maker at a trade school. But after completing his training at the age of 13, he decided for health reasons to change professions, and he began to study tailoring.

1933-39: I finished apprenticing as a tailor in 1937 when I was 20. Then I spent a year working as a nurse in a Jewish home for the permanently disabled. It was there that I met Bep, a nurse. She wanted me to go back to tailoring so that we could build a secure future together. In 1939 I opened a tailor shop in Amsterdam, and in September that year I began to work as a tailor for the military, which fulfilled my Dutch military service.

1940-44: The Germans invaded the Netherlands in May 1940. In 1942 I was deported and spent the next three years in 11 different German labor camps, where I saw all of my Dutch friends meet painful deaths. In the Annaberg camp a 16-year-old boy came to me. He had ragged slippers on his feet. He offered me his soup for some shoes. Since I had two pairs, I gave him one and told him to keep the soup. "Idiot," said

another man. "The boy will be dead in a week and then somebody else will take your shoes."

COENRAAD ROODOf the 81 members of his extended family deported by the Nazis, Coenraad was one of seven survivors. His wife Bep survived in hiding, and they were reunited after the war.

MENDEL ROZENBLIT


LUKOW, POLANDMendel was one of six children born to a religious Jewish family. When Mendel was in his early 20s, he married and moved with his wife to her hometown of Wolomin, near Warsaw. One week after the Rozenblits' son, Avraham, was born, Mendel's wife died. Distraught after the death of his young wife and left to care for a baby, Mendel married his sister-in-law Perele.

1933-39: In Wolomin Mendel ran a lumber yard. In 1935 the Rozenblits had a daughter, Tovah. When Avraham and Tovah were school age, they began attending a Jewish day school, where they studied general subjects in Polish and Jewish subjects in Hebrew. Avraham was 8 and Tovah was 4 when the Germans invaded Polandon September 1, 1939.

1940-44: By the fall of 1940 the Rozenblit family had been sent to the Warsaw ghetto. During the ghetto uprising in April 1943, Mendel and his family managed to escape to the outskirts of Warsaw. They decided that if anyone should get lost in the chaos, they

would all meet at a designated farmhouse. Suddenly, Avraham disappeared. Perele set out to find him, and was never seen again. Mendel eventually found Avraham, shoeless, at the farmhouse. Not long after, Mendel, Avraham and Tovah were arrested and deported toAuschwitz.

MENDEL ROZENBLITAt Auschwitz Mendel was selected for hard labor. His children were gassed. In 1947 Mendel emigrated to the United States, where he began a new family.

HANS (JOHN) SACHS

BORN: MAY 8, 1920

DECIN, CZECHOSLOVAKIAHans was born to a Jewish family in the Sudetenland, a region of Czechoslovakia that had a large German population. In 1922 the Sachs family moved to Vienna, Austria, where they purchased a dry goods store. Hans attended public school and had many non-Jewish friends.

1933–39: By 1936 many of Hans' friends and their families supported the Nazi movement. In March 1938, German troops entered Austriaand incorporated it into the Reich. Hans watched as large crowds in Vienna cheered Hitler when he visited the city. Local Nazis terrorized the Jews, forcing them to clean the streets and paint the word Jude (Jew) on storefront windows. One day, Hans' best friend showed up in a Nazi uniform and ended their close relationship. That summer, the Sachs' shop, like many other Jewish businesses,

was transferred to an “Aryan” trustee. In September 1938 the family returned to Czechoslovakia, settling in Prague. In March 1939, German troops entered the city.

1940–45: Hans realized that the family had to emigrate. Before they left Vienna he had begun writing to people in the United States with the last name Sachs in a desperate effort to find someone who could help. In Prague, Hans received a letter from a dentist in New York who offered to sponsor him. His parents, then in their fifties, refused to leave. Hans left for the United States in April 1940. Arriving in New York, he found work as a plumber—an occupation he had learned in Prague. In 1941 he was drafted into the U.S. Army. Hans fought in the Allied military campaigns in the Aleutian Islands and Italy.

HANS (JOHN) SACHSIn August 1945, he returned to America and soon afterward married a fellow refugee. He learned that his father had been arrested, deported to the Small Fortress in Theresienstadt, then Auschwitz, and later Buchenwald, where he died. His mother perished at the Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center.

DANIEL SCHWARZWALD


BYELTS, POLANDDaniel, usually known as Danek, was one of three children born to Raphael and Amalia Schwarzwald, a Jewish couple living in a village near Lvov. When he was a young boy, his family moved to Lvov, where he went on to attend secondary school and a business college. Daniel opened a lumber export business. He traveled extensively and could speak Polish, German, Russian, Yiddish and English.

1933-39: Business prospered and in 1935 Daniel married Laura Litwak and settled in an apartment in a Christian section of Lvov. But war loomed and industrial Lvov was coveted by both the Germans and Soviets. Daniel wanted to emigrate to Britain, where he had business contacts. But his wife, who was pregnant, did not want to abandon her parents. In September 1939 the Soviets occupied Lvov and Daniel's business was expropriated.

1940-42: After the Germans occupied Lvov in 1941, the Schwarzwalds were forced into the Lvov ghetto. With his remaining money Daniel bought false "Polish Catholic" ID cards for his family. Polish friends promised to help them in case anything happened to him. One day, while he was at the Jewish council offices, soldiers surrounded the building and ordered everyone out--someone had killed a drunken German. People were shot as they left, so Daniel tried to save himself by jumping from a window.

DANIEL SCHWARZWALDAs Daniel jumped from the window that Tuesday, September 1, 1942, he was shot by the Germans. He was 41 years old.

MARTHIJN WIJNBERG

BORN: DECEMBER 23, 1919

GRONINGEN, NETHERLANDSWhen Marthijn was 10, his religious Jewish family moved from Groningen to the town of Zwolle. There, his parents ran the only kosher hotel in the region. The Wijnbergs had two other sons and a daughter. All of the children attended Dutch public schools,

and four afternoons a week they also went to religious school to study Jewish history, Hebrew and the Bible.

1933-39: Marthijn could play almost any instrument, including piano, saxophone and accordion. Sometimes each of his brothers would pick up an instrument and they would all make an impromptu band. But Marthijn's greatest pleasure was creating pastries and sweets. One day, he built a bridge out of sugar and displayed it at his family's hotel. He attended culinary school, and in 1937 was appointed head pastry chef at a bakery in Rotterdam.

1940-43: Marthjin was drafted into the Dutch army. When war broke out with Germany in May 1940 he served as a sergeant. Four days later, after Holland was defeated, Marthjin returned to Zwolle. His father died in 1941, but the family continued running the hotel until the Germans confiscated it in 1942. The Wijnbergs were relocated to a shack with no bathroom or hot water. When Marthjin's older brother Maurits was sent to a labor camp in the Netherlands, Marthjin insisted on going with him. They worked there from fall 1942 to winter 1943.

MARTHIJN WIJNBERGOn January 31, 1943, Marthijn was deported to Auschwitz, where he perished. He was 23 years old.

SAMUEL ZOLTAN

BORN: 1912

TRANSYLVANIA, ROMANIASamuel's parents emigrated to Palestine when he was very young. They lived in Rishon le Zion, the first settlement in Palestine founded by Jews from outside of Palestine. After graduating from high school, Samuel became active in a movement challenging the British mandate in Palestine.

1933-39: Samuel was expelled from Palestine in 1936 because of his outspoken criticism of the British mandate. He went to France and then to Spain just after the civil war began. Samuel fought for three years with the Spanish Republicans against the fascists. The Republicans were defeated, and Samuel returned to France, where he was interned by the French at the Gurs detention camp for foreigners. He escaped and headed for Paris.

1940-44: In 1940 Samuel joined the armed resistance group, Franc-Tireurs et Partisans. He smuggled explosives into Paris to use in sabotage against the German army. In July 1942 he arrived at the East Paris train station with two suitcases full of explosives. Two policemen grabbed him. He ran, but was shot in the legs and arrested. After two months his wounds healed. Then, on crutches, he was led daily to the prison basement to be questioned and tortured.

SAMUEL ZOLTANSamuel refused to divulge information. He died under torture at the age of 34.

ODON JERZY WOS


WARSAW, POLANDOdon was the third of four children born to Roman Catholic parents in Warsaw, Poland's capital. His father had worked for the Polish merchant marine before starting his own textile business in 1930. When Odon was 8, the family moved to a comfortable apartment located near the Royal Castle and Vistula River. In 1932 Odon began attending grade school.

1933-39: In September 1938 I began secondary school. Sensing growing danger from Germany, my father advised me to study German in addition to French. On September 1, 1939, the day school began, the Germans attacked Poland. For four weeks they bombed Warsaw; there were corpses and blood everywhere. On September 29 Warsaw surrendered.

1940-44: At 16, I joined the Polish underground [Armia Krajowa], and trained for combat and sabotage. On August 1, 1944, the Warsaw uprising began. I took part with my unit in attacks on German strongholds like the main post office. In mid-August I volunteered to deliver ammunition to Warsaw's besieged Old Town by crawling through the city's three-foot-wide sewer pipes. I'd tie a 50-pound sack around my chest and crawl six hours there and four hours back. After 63 days of fighting and being pounded by artillery and bombardments, we surrendered on October 3.

ODON JERZY WOSOdon was eventually taken to a POW camp in Austria, from which he escaped to Switzerland on April 20, 1944. He joined Polish troops fighting with the Allies in France.

JUDITH SCHWED


KISKUNFELEGYHAZA, HUNGARYJudith was the older of two children born to Jewish parents in the town of Kiskunfelegyhaza in southeastern Hungary. Her mother, Anna, and her mother's sister, Kornelia, were close in age and had a contest to see who would be the first to have a baby. Judith's Aunt Kornelia won the contest and cousin Maria was born in December 1931, just three weeks before Judith.

1933-39: Judith's father had a prosperous wholesale business that sold goose meat, down, feathers and quilts. In 1939, the same year that Judith began attending school, the Hungarian government enacted a new law that decreed Jews were not entitled to the same rights as other Hungarians.

1940-44: In November 1940 Hungary became an ally of Nazi Germany. More laws were passed to restrict the rights of Hungary's Jews. Judith, who was a good student and wrote articles for a weekly children's newspaper, was forced out of public school. In March 1944 the Germans occupied Hungary. That April, Kiskunfelegyhaza's 700 Jews were moved into a ghetto set up by Hungarian officials. Two months later, all 700 were transported to Kecskemet, a deportation center for Jews in southern Hungary.

JUDITH SCHWED

Between June 25 and 28, 1944, Judith and her family were deported to Auschwitz, where Judith was gassed upon arrival. She was 12 years old.

SELMA SCHWARZWALD

BORN: SEPTEMBER 2, 1937

LVOV, POLANDBoth of Selma's Jewish parents, Daniel Schwarzwald and Laura Litwak, had been raised in the industrial city of Lvov. As many different nationalities lived in Lvov, Selma's mother and father could speak many languages--Polish, Russian, German and Yiddish. In running his successful lumber business, Daniel also occasionally used English.

1933-39: My parents married in April 1935 and I was born two years later. My father was afraid that there might be a war and wanted to move the family to safety in Britain. But my mother didn't want to abandon her parents. In September 1939, when I was 2 years old, the Germans invaded Poland from the west while the Soviets invaded from the east. Lvov fell under Soviet control.

1940-44: In 1941 the Germans occupied Lvov. On the day of my fifth birthday, my father disappeared. My mother and I moved to a small town called Busko-Zdroj. She told me my name was Zofia Tymejko, that we were Catholic, and warned me: "Never tell anyone we're from Lvov, never talk to strangers." We became practicing Catholics. One day at school, my teacher said Germans and Jews were bad--the Germans because they killed Poles, the Jews because they killed Jesus. I asked Mother; she said she knew some Jews and that they weren't all bad.

SELMA SCHWARZWALDAfter the war ended, Selma and her mother emigrated to England. There, Selma learned that she was Jewish. She eventually became a doctor, and settled in America in 1963.

MARTIN SPETT

BORN: DECEMBER 2, 1928

TARNOW, POLANDKnown as Monek, Martin was the elder of two children raised by Jewish parents in the large town of Tarnow. His mother was an American citizen who had been raised in Poland. His father worked at the city's tax office. As a child, Martin liked to collect stamps and catch lizards. His parents wanted him to be a pharmacist, but he wanted to be an artist when he grew up.

1933-39: When the Germans occupied Tarnow in September 1939 after war began, I was 10 years old. The soldiers, in beautiful uniforms, were polite. But then they started forcing Jews to clean the streets of horse manure with their bare hands. Going to see my rabbi for a Sabbath lesson, I found Germans kicking him around in his prayer shawl. In Hebrew, he yelled to me, "Run!" Turning to escape, I heard a shot fired. Rabbi Wrubel was dead.

1940-44: In 1940 we were forced out of our apartment. After the Germans began rounding up Jews for deportation, my father and uncle dug two ditches underneath the floorboards at my uncle's lumberyard. The day before the next deportation we hid

beneath the floorboards. Lying on our backs in the dark for four days, we heard shouting, shooting and dogs barking. During the roundup we heard two Poles above us trying to catch Jews. One peed on us without knowing we were there. When it was finally quiet, we emerged.

MARTIN SPETTMartin was deported to the Bergen-Belsen camp and was freed from an evacuation train by American troops on April 13, 1945. He emigrated to the United States in 1947.

IDA SZCZUPAKIEWICZ

BORN: MAY 15, 1930

MALKINIA, POLANDIda was the oldest of three children born to a Jewish family in northeastern Poland in Malkinia, a town situated on the right bank of the Bug River. Ida's father was a grain merchant and her family lived in the same house that her grandfather had owned.

1933-39: I was 9 when Germany invaded Poland. At once my family hid on some nearby farms but a few weeks later we returned home. When our neighbor, my father's best friend, became a Nazi informant, my father had us each pack a small bag--we were going to my uncle's house in the Soviet zone. My father felt it would be better to got to the Soviet side. Luckily our town was on the border between German- and Soviet-controlled Poland.

1940-44: We stayed with my uncle for a few months but it was so crowded we had to leave. We decided to go east. The Soviets packed us in cattle cars and for 16 days we rode in the freezing cold. We were given water, but when we asked for food we were always told, "Next station." Finally we arrived in Sverdlovsk, in the Urals. We were herded into large halls and given food and told that things would be like "heaven." Later, we were sent to a logging camp with one-room shacks and no fuel. My parents were put to work at the logging camp.

IDA SZCZUPAKIEWICZIda and her family spent the rest of the war in the Soviet Union, where her sister Bessie and brother Josef were born. In 1951 Ida emigrated to the United States.

KARL STOJKA

BORN: APRIL 20, 1931

WAMPERSDORF, AUSTRIAKarl was the fourth of six children born to Roman Catholic Gypsy parents in the village of Wampersdorf in eastern Austria. The Stojkas belonged to a tribe of Gypsies called the Lowara Roma, who made their living as itinerant horse traders. They lived in a traveling family wagon, and spent winters in Austria's capital of Vienna. Karl's ancestors had lived in Austria for more than 200 years.

1933-39: I grew up used to freedom, travel and hard work. In March 1938 our wagon was parked for the winter in a Vienna campground, when Germany annexed Austria just before my seventh birthday. The Germans ordered us to stay put. My

parents converted our wagon into a wooden house, but I wasn't used to having permanent walls around me. My father and oldest sister began working in a factory, and I started grade school.

1940-44: By 1943 my family had been deported to a Nazi camp in Birkenau for thousands of Gypsies. Now we were enclosed by barbed wire. By August 1944 only 2,000 Gypsies were left alive; 918 of us were put on a transport to Buchenwald to do forced labor. There the Germans decided that 200 of us were incapable of working and were to be sent back to Birkenau. I was one of them; they thought I was too young. But my brother and uncle insisted that I was 14 but a dwarf. I got to stay. The rest were returned to be gassed.

KARL STOJKAKarl was later deported to the Flossenbürg concentration camp. He was freed near Roetz, Germany, by American troops on April 24, 1945. After the war, he returned to Vienna.

EVA RAPAPORT


VIENNA, AUSTRIAEva was the only child born to nonreligious Jewish parents. Her father was a journalist. Eva enjoyed spending time with her cousin Susie, who was two years older. Eva also took special vacations with her mother. Sometimes they went skiing in the Austrian alps, and on other occasions they stayed at her uncle's cabin along the Danube River.

1933-39: When the Germans annexed Austria in 1938, life changed. Father was harassed by the Gestapo for writing articles against the Germans. My good friends called me bad names because I was Jewish. My parents said we had to escape. We fled by train to Paris. One day there, in my third-grade class, bombs began falling. We raced to the air-raid shelter and put on gas masks. The smell of rubber was overwhelming. I felt like I was choking.

1940-44: After the Germans entered Paris in 1940, we escaped to the unoccupied south. Two years later, when I was 13, Germans occupied the south and we were forced to move on again. During the treacherous trek in the mountains between Switzerland and France, we took refuge in the small French village of St. Martin. The village priest, Father Longeray, let my parents hide in his basement. I lived openly in the parish house as a shepherdess. I attended church with the other children and learned the Catholic mass in Latin.

EVA RAPAPORTEva and her parents remained hidden in St. Martin. They were liberated at the end of 1944. In 1948, when Eva was 18, she and her parents emigrated to the United States.

MANON MARLIAC


PARIS, FRANCEManon's Christian parents lived in Paris. Roger Marliac, her father, originally from a wealthy family, supported his family by selling produce at small marketplaces. Margarit, her mother (called Maguy by her friends), had a university degree in science. The family lived in a large apartment in a fashionable neighborhood near the Eiffel Tower.1933-39: Manon, the Marliacs' second child, was born in 1937. She was 2 years old when her father was drafted into the French army as the country mobilized for a possible invasion by Germany. Her mother, left with three children, poor health and no means of support, took a job in an airplane factory.

1940-44: France fell to Germany in June 1940. Manon arrived with a truckload of children in the town of Savigny-en-Veron in late 1942. She had been told that her father was a prisoner and that her mother had been killed in a bombing raid. Sometimes the Germans would search Savigny-en-Veron, and a man whom Manon called "Cousin Tain-Tain" would take her to the woods to hide. Manon would cry, but Cousin Tain-Tain would distract her by having her search for pheasants in the brush.

MANON MARLIACManon survived the war but was never reunited with her parents. Some 50 years later she learned that her parents had also survived and that her mother had been a resistance fighter.

PREBEN MUNCH-NIELSEN

BORN: JUNE 13, 1926

SNEKKERSTEN, DENMARKPreben was born to a Protestant family in the small Danish fishing village of Snekkersten. He was raised by his grandmother, who was also responsible for raising five other grandchildren. Every day Preben commuted to school in the Danish capital of Copenhagen, about 25 miles south of Snekkersten.

1933-39: There were very few Jews in my elementary school, but I didn't think of them as Jews; they were just my classmates and pals. In Denmark we didn't distinguish between Jews and non-Jews, we were all just Danes. By fifth grade, my classmates and I heard rumors of a German military build-up. But later, in 1939, my parents said that Hitler had promised not to invade Denmark, which made us feel relatively safe.

1940-42: Occupation. In April 1940 I arrived in Copenhagen, where I saw planes overhead and German officers in the street. I joined the resistance as a courier, but I became more involved in October 1943 when the Gestapo began hunting down Danish Jews. We began to help Jewish refugees. We hid them in houses near the shore and brought them to waiting boats at an appointed time. Under cover of darkness, we took up to 12 Jews at a time across the straits to Sweden. The four-mile trip took about 50 minutes.

PREBEN MUNCH-NIELSEN

Preben helped transport 1,400 refugees to Sweden. He fled to Sweden as well in November 1943 when the Germans seized the Danish government. Preben returned home in May 1945.

1940-44: after the germans invaded belgium in may 1940, we...

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